The 2018 US Air Guitar national finals: back in the New York groove!

New York City will host the 2018 U.S. Air Guitar National Finals on Saturday, August 4th. All summer, leading up to the Finals in New York, Regional Champions will be crowned from Portland to Orlando and everywhere in between, from America’s most legendary music venues to our seediest dive bars. Each of these winners will descend upon New York City on the first weekend in August to compete for the title of 2018 U.S. Air Guitar Champion.

U.S. Air Guitar’s months-long search for the country’s finest professional air guitarists will culminate at Rough Trade NYC this August 4th. The night’s winner will don the Championship belt, fend off rabid fans and a frenzied media blitz, then ask mom where she keeps the passports before he or she flies to Finland to represent Team USA against the rest of the world in the Air Guitar World Championships.

It has been nearly a decade since New York City won its last bid to host the nation’s most coveted event in sports-rock crossover. This summer, we’re back in the New York groove!

Returning US Champion MOM JEANS JEANIE (Nicole Sevcik) capped her own decade-long career with the National Title in 2017, and a 6th-place finish in the World Championships in Finland. On stage, instead of guitar picks, Mom Jeans routinely greets her fans with fruit roll-upsand hand sanitizer (safety first!). But not long after she loses her last Purell, Mom Jeans loses her shit: heart-pumping, face-melting, lunch-tossing shit. Meanwhile, her expertly edited tracks like Dio’s “Don’t Talk to Strangers” (1983) provide a dose of nostalgia, an unexpected heavy metal milieu for a soccer mom, plus an important public service announcement, all in one.

Of course, in New York City you never know who’s going to show up. Previous NYC celebrity air guitar judges include SNL’sAidy Bryant, Jason Sudeikis and Rachel Dratch, The Daily Show’sJason Jones, NBC’s Willie Geist, and a ragtag group of past performers, enthusiasts, and academics alike (including Tipping Point’s Malcolm Gladwell and even Edward Snowden’s attorney – no kidding!)

In 2017, Team USA also sent AIRISTOTLE(Matt Burns), boy genius, to the World Stage in Finland. After arriving, nobody appreciated Mom Jeans’ fruit snacks and sensible advice than this spindly, bespectacled, barely legal kid from Staten Island.

Alone, Mom Jeans and Airistotle were a threat. Together, they were indomitable. Both placed in the final round in Finland, with last year’s top prize going to Airistotle, who won back-to-back World Championships for the first time since France’s GUNTHER LOVE in 2010.

Everyone is asking, whom will win their Regional competition and advance to the National Finals in New York? It’s anybody’s guess, with this summer’s crowded field including local staples like TWISTED SIST-AIR (Marquina Iliev) and New York’s newcomer, GEORGIA LUNCH (Brittany Diaz); Boston’s OpRock is always a threat to advance to the National stage, as is Iowa’s home-state king FLYIN’ FINN (Andrew Finn); from California, there’s fierce competition between regional rivals COLD STEEL RENEGADE (Matthew Feldstein, SF), LUMB-AIR-JACK (William Herndon, SD), and WHAMMY HAGAR (Tim Granlund, LA). Not to mention Denver’s AGNES YOUNG (Rachel Sinclair) and DIANNE CLETUS (Dyin’ Cletus), Santa Cruz’s KITKAT (Kate Rose), Portland’s KARA PICANTE (Kara Muir), and a ridiculously long and distinguished pool of other professional air guitarists.

Founded in 2003, U.S. Air Guitar is the official governing body of professional air guitar in the United States and is responsible for operating the U.S. Air Guitar Championships and other sanctioned events. U.S. Air Guitar is devoted to taking our nation's unofficial pastime out of the bedroom and putting it on the world stage. U.S. Air Guitar is a charter member of the World Air Guitar Association. Entering its sixteenth season in the U.S. and its twenty-third year worldwide, official national championships currently are held in 16 countries around the globe including the U.S.A, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Kazakhstan, The Netherlands, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States Of America, with more countries participating every year. The 2018 Air Guitar World Championships will take place in late August in Oulu, Finland.

The excitement of a U.S. Air Guitar show must be experienced live, but fans across the world can see fan-shot photos and video by following the hashtag #usairguitar this summer. Livestreams area also available via usairguitar.com. Concertgoers are encouraged to shoot their own photos and video and can follow the results across the country on the usairguitar.com blog, Facebook Page, and the @usairguitar Instagram and Twitter accounts.